Inspecting a worm factory

Here's a slide show (to the right) of a Worm Factory (TM) from Cascade Manufacturing. This was taken early in June 2009 and the farm had been set up for about 8 weeks.

First off, I always try to remember to drain the liquid (leachate aka: compost tea) often so it doesn't go 'septic'. This stuff should be mixed 50/50 with water and used on any of your houseplants or outdoor garden or ornamentals.

Lifting the lid, you'll see that the top tray has a bunch of wet shredded newspaper bedding and a few veggies, but not much worm activity yet. The lower level is starting to look pretty well consumed across the surface. The castings are black soft crums that are pretty light to the touch. Digging into the surface you'll see that there is still paper and veggies in process, and worms pretty uniformly crawling thru the entire layer. As it should be! If you see any tiny red capsules those would be worm coccoons. They are hard to notice, but about the size of a bb and red like the worms. Each coccoon will hatch about 4-6 red wigglers. They could hatch as quickly as 30 days, but can also remain dormant for ages... (months?)

The last slide shows the surface of the vermiculture compost to have fallen 1/2 inch or so below the top of the tray.

Once the worms decide that the grass-is-greener up top, as they consume the remainder of the food in the bottom tray, they will start migrating to the upper tray. I can start taking castings out of the bottom tray, but watch for coccoons that I want to leave behind to hatch.